


An Unexpected Dash Through the Snow

by MaldaineD



Series: Winter Break:  A Danny Phantom Story [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:45:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8970169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaldaineD/pseuds/MaldaineD
Summary: Depressed and broken, Danny has come home from college for the holidays.  Not knowing who he is outside of Danny Phantom, his family has allotted him some time to just be Danny Fenton for a night before Christmas.  When Danny runs into the last person he wants to see, it turns out that a lot of changing can happen, and many relationships can be repaired





	

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic, why not try checking out my long form comic at ignotacomic.tumblr.com!

“I’m just saying that you seem to have some pent up aggression about the situation, Danny,” Jazz said. She flipped the page over and marked another section with the red pen.

 

“You’re always saying I have pent up aggression,” Danny responded. About the same time her pen marked a comma splice, he flipped the page in his chemistry textbook. It was amazing to think that he was already a senior in college. His parents sure mentioned it a lot. They were happy that finally, finally!, he started to get interested in science as he buckled down and focused on his studies. While chemistry wasn’t quite the field they were interested in, it was still a bond that helped build the bridge back up after his formative teenage rebellion years. 

 

“You haven’t had a single girlfriend in college.”

 

“Because I’ve been working on my degree.”

 

“And that’s admirable, Danny. I’m just pointing out that you don’t smile as much as you did when I came home from grad school. You’re too serious now,” Jazz said as she flipped the last page and put it in her stack. Sure, being a teacher wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life, but it brought her a bit of fulfillment. She was gunning for a guidance counselor job at another school in the district; all she had to do was stick with this teaching gig for another year and she was almost guaranteed the position. 

 

“First I didn’t take things seriously enough. Would you make up your mind, Jazz?”

 

“We can stop talking about it.”

 

“I’d prefer it. I just want to get a leg up for next semester. I have the hardest professor and I heard reading ahead helps a bit,” he said as he turned another page and highlighted a few sentences.

 

“I wish some of my students had your work ethic,” Jazz said. Her desire to talk about Tucker and Sam increased by the moment, but she knew that the break up had been hard, and she didn’t want to open a fresh wound. She knew, deep down, she was one of the few people Danny still trusted, and she didn’t want to cause anything to stress him out more than his life already did. With a flick of her wrist, she checked a passage to denote some stellar writing, and she grabbed another paper to grade. Danny may have been on break, but she had three more days of school to go.

 

God knows, growing up saving the world all the time was enough to nearly ruin anyone’s life.

 

~~

 

“No, I’m sorry, Danny isn’t taking any visitors right now. He’s thinking of doing a bit of a meet and greet after Christmas, but until then, he’d just like a little private time with his family,” Maddie said as she tried to shoo away some fans of Danny Phantom. 

 

Danny came down stairs, rubbing his eyes, messing with his hair, and finally rounding the corner into the kitchen to get some food before he went out to do a little Christmas shopping. He hoped that today it would be quiet; he hoped that today no one would want to start anything with him.

 

“Hi, honey!” Maddie said as she gave Danny a kiss on the head. She put some toast on a plate and finished it off with eggs and bacon. 

 

“Thanks, mom,” Danny said as he sat down. It didn’t take him long to finish the plate of food, and after he took the final bite of eggs, he grabbed a napkin and sneezed into it. A bit of gooey ectoplasm hung to the folded paper. He folded it up and tossed it into the trash while he took the empty plate to the dishwasher.

 

“I hope you aren’t coming down with anything, sweetie. The last time you had a ghostly flu, we could barely find enough space in the garbage for all your tissues,” Maddie said as she tried to make conversation. She’d notice how closed off Danny had become in the years since it was revealed he was the one that saved the world, and since then, she’d done everything that she could to just make him feel like Danny Fenton, but she couldn’t deny that after he got older, he broke away from them. She’d even talked to Jazz, perhaps the only person Danny still talked to regularly, and even she seemed worried.

 

“I’m just tired, mom. I promise,” Danny said. 

 

“Well, you just don’t talk to me that much anymore…”

 

“I talk to you all the time,” Danny said as he walked over and gave her a hug. She squeezed him back tightly.

 

“Why don’t you go out tonight? We’ll cover for you here, and you can manifest an apparition to float around your room for people to see. Get out and have a little fun; clear your head,” Maddie suggested, and she could have sworn she actually saw Danny smile a little bit. “It’ll be good for you.”

 

“I love you, mom,” Danny said.

 

He meant it even if he didn’t say it often anymore.

 

~~  
“Jazz, I’m…Jazz?”

 

“I’ve got the hair dye ready, and I’ve already laid out your clothes for the night. I think they are most un-Danny.”

 

“You’re gonna dye the white streak in my hair? Wait, how did you have all this ready?”

 

“I’m your big sister! Mom and me knew exactly what you needed. We even told Dad that we were going to have a family game night so he’d tell all the neighbors about how excited he was for playing Go Fish with us.”

 

“You guys are incredible.”

 

“We know.”

 

~~

 

Danny hated it when it was cold outside because he could never quite tell if it was his ghost sense or just him seeing his breath. He wanted tonight just to be quiet, no fighting, no people trying to get his autograph, nothing like that. He just wanted to get a beer at a few bars in town and then fly home and go to sleep. He wanted to just be a college kid home for Christmas.

 

The snow made it nearly impossible to see where he was going as it started to take over the whole town in a blanket of pure crystalline powder. Danny found his way through though and stumbled into a little pub not but a few blocks from his house. He calculated that he would probably start and finish in this location. He had a light IPA to start, trying to get into the mood of traveling around. His thoughts lingered to highschool, with Sam and Tucker, but he didn’t want to think about that, not in that moment. He just wanted to relax for a minute before he thought about that.

 

After a drink there, he moved on to the next, a bar right around the corner. The atmosphere was a bit hazier, and the people inside looked a bit sad about the holidays. He decided not to linger very long, and so he moved from his seat after he paid his bill and went to the next place he could find. 

 

It was called the Ghastly Nook, and there was a great desire in Danny’s heart just to pass it, but for some reason, he found his hand upon the door, and enter he did. 

 

~~

 

Interestingly, the décor was not as bad as Danny thought it was going to be. Sure, it was a little dark, the cocktails had obnoxious names that just changed a word or two from the actual drink it was supposed be, and the uniforms the waiters and bartenders had to wear were a bit ridiculous, but the people were friendly, and it was mostly empty. That last part was probably the best thing about it.

 

Danny plopped himself down at the bar and looked at the drink list. The food items on the menu didn’t look to bad either, and despite the gimmicks of the restaurant, reviews for the place were really good when he looked it up on his phone. 

 

“What can I get for you?” The bartender asked. There was an air of familiarity about him that Danny liked for some reason.

 

“I’ll just take a…Moonlight Margarita,” Danny said with an air of disgust.

 

“I know, man, the names are awful, but we’ve got some good recipes,” the bartender said as he poured the drink and handed it off to Danny. 

 

Danny took a sip, and the bartender was right. It was delicious. After a few more sips, the bartender returned and Danny asked for another.

 

“Coming up.”

 

“Why is it so dead in here, heh, forgive the pun,” Danny laughed.

 

“Get’s quiet in here around Christmas time. You should see it during Halloween though.”

 

“You’ve been working here long?”

 

“Mostly in the summer and when I come back from college. I just got bumped to bartender.”

 

“Congrats. Where do you go?”

 

“Nationsville University.”

 

“That’s a good school. One of the guys on my school’s football team got a scholarship there.”

 

“I know, Fenton.”

 

Danny was half a drink in when he nearly spit it out across the bar. Of all the people in his entire life (well living people) that he would want to see on his night to be out and about…that person would be serving him drinks in some bar a few blocks from his house.

 

“Dash? It’s been so long, I didn’t even recognize you,” Danny said. He started to wonder what might have happened to his drink behind the bar without his knowledge, then he was worried someone might have overheard Dash say his last name. 

 

“It has been a while, but don’t worry, I’m not gonna antagonize you,” he said with a sly smile.

 

To Danny’s surprise, he didn’t.

~~

 

Dash got off work about the same time that Danny finished his second margarita, and for some reason, despite Danny’s protests, Dash demanded the two of them catch up, and after only minutes of talking, Danny didn’t mind the company. Dash had changed, a lot, for the better. 

 

Since he didn’t want to stay at the place he worked to get drunk, he asked if they could go to a little dive bar down the street. It was quiet, the lights were low, and there weren’t many people out. The bartender there gave them the first round on the house, and Dash took another shot so that he could ‘catch up’ with Danny.

 

“So do you still hang out with Tucker and Sam?”

 

“I’m surprised you know their names,” Danny said with a laugh.

 

“Course I do. How else do you think I came up with all those horrible nicknames for the three of you?”

 

Danny’s burger arrived, and his hunger consumed the thing in a minute flat. Even Dash looked impressed by the feat.

 

“Sorry, I eat kinda fast,” Danny said. Danny sneezed suddenly, and a bit of ectoplasm shot across the bar and onto his empty plate.

 

It was almost like an instinct. Dash’s hand shot out and gathered the glob in a napkin with such speed that Danny was almost unsure if it had happened at all. The only reason he was sure was because Dash posted up and shot the napkin into the trashcan behind the bar like it was nothing.

 

“I got your back, Fenton.”

 

“Thanks,” Danny said. The shock of thanking Dash nearly knocked him out of his chair.

 

“You never answered my question.”

 

“What was it? My stomach sort of made me forget you even asked me a question.”

 

“You didn’t forget.”

 

Danny was silent.

 

“It’s cool man. I don’t talk to anyone from high school either. It’s not like I’m trying to compare situations, but I know that feeling of being sort of alone around the holidays when you’re back in town and don’t have anyone to talk to. Why do you think I work during my breaks?”

 

“What happened with you and Paulina? Kwan?”

 

“I got a scholarship and they didn’t,” Dash said matter-of-factly. “I went away, kept doing well at football, made new friends, and the more I worked, the more I realized I didn’t talk to them anymore.”

 

“That’s not what happened to me…”

 

“I figured not.”

 

“You wised up.”

 

“I’ve learned, Fenton. I’m sad I don’t talk to my friends from high school, but I’m glad I’m not the Dash you knew in high school.”

 

~~

 

They returned to the bar that Danny started in. To be honest, Danny was glad he was closer to home, and he was really glad he had eaten that burger because Dash wasn’t slowing down in the slightest, and Danny didn’t really want to either. He knew there was a Christmas Truce in the Ghost World, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been broken before. He rarely drank because of the public eye on him constantly, but sitting around, just talking with Dash, a guy that tortured him in high school, strangely, it felt cathartic.

 

“This isn’t some trick, is it?” Danny asked finally.

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“You being nice to me? You aren’t going to get me drunk and then do something weird to me and post photos on the Internet, right?”

 

“Would it make you more comfortable if I did?”

 

“Strangely, yeah…” Danny said with a smile. 

 

~~

 

The snow was coming down even heavier than it was before, and where Danny only had a block or so to walk, Dash had quite the walk back to his house. Neither of them wanted to drink anymore, but neither really wanted to go home either, and so instead, they just walked through the snow, contemplating how much had changed between them in the short night, and how different they were since school. Danny had been the happy-go-lucky ghost kid, Dash the bully. Now Dash was this happy guy that was finally proud of himself and his life, and Danny was just a bit of a shell, trying to discern what his life was supposed to be.

 

“The best advice I can give you is do something for yourself, Fenton. You’re always going to be two people, but Danny Fenton came first, and you should keep him first.”

 

“You don’t think it’s selfish?”

 

“Coming from the guy that used to worship Danny Phantom when I was younger? No, I don’t think it is at all.”

 

Danny didn’t know what he was doing until he did it. His arms wrapped around Dash’s puffy coat, and he squeezed into his barrel chest. He could feel some tears in the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t do anything to wipe them away. He just sniffled. And that was when the most surprising thing of the entire night happened. Danny felt Dash’s hand on the back of his head, his other on the small of his back. The guy that tortured his human half all through school was now comforting him when he needed it most. This was the strangest Christmas Danny ever had, and he had some strange Christmases. 

 

“I told them I didn’t want them around anymore…that they were slowing me down,” Danny said into Dash’s jacket. “It wasn’t true. I wanted them around, but I was afraid of what might happen to them. Things started getting worse and worse, and the people just started surrounding us constantly. Their grades started to slip so they could keep watch over my door so I could study. Danny Phantom killed my friendships with the best people I knew.”

 

“No, people did. I’m sorry that I was one of those people for so long, Danny.”

 

“Every day I wish I could take it back.”

 

“Do you know if they are in town?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“I bet you could find out.”

 

~~

 

Most of the lights were out in the Fenton’s home when Danny let himself and Dash inside. A deck of cards on the kitchen table said that Jack Fenton won out overall and regardless of the ruse; the family played Go Fish!

 

There wasn’t much to drink, but there were a few beers left over in the fridge, so Danny grabbed two and handed one to Dash. The two of them went up to Danny’s room and just continued their talk. They shied away from friendships for a moment, and just talked about school.

 

“Chemistry is awesome, dude! And you’re doing well?”

 

“I’ve gotten all A’s the past six semesters.”

 

Dash was getting a degree in Kinesthetic with the hope of eventually getting a degree in sports medicine and becoming a doctor. The very thought of Dash being a doctor caused Danny to laugh a little bit.

 

“What are you laughing at?” Dash said. “My dreams aren’t good enough?”

 

“No, they’re just not what I expected…”

 

The two of them continued talking well into the early hours of the morning. Danny got an entire night and morning to himself, to be himself. The both felt the buzz go, and yet they still talked, still wanted to know more about the years that they had lost, Dash of transgressions he still hadn’t made up for. By the time it was 4am, Danny could see that there was little chance of stopping, and he was happy about that. That’s when it happen…

 

Dash’s hand caught the bottom of Danny’s chin, and Danny stopped his laughter. Dash looked at him for a moment before slowly pressing his lips against Danny’s. His tongue separated Danny’s lips, and Danny didn’t really stop it from happening; he closed his eyes and a strange sense of calmness rushed over him even though his heart was pounding. Before he knew what he was doing, he felt his hand rubbing the back of Dash’s head and he was kissing the man right back.

 

Dash pulled away for a moment, and he was sure he could see his breath when he breathed out.

 

“Sorry about that, it’s just a thing that happens,” Danny said.

 

“You’re okay with what just happened?” Dash asked.

 

“Yeah, I was.”

 

“Good, I’ve been waiting till you sobered up…. I’ve had so many alcohol seminars and sex seminars in school that I was a little worried about actually doing that. I know dubious consent and…”

 

“Dubious consent?”

 

“Like, we both have impaired judgment, so are we really saying yes?”

 

“You did learn a lot in school,” Danny said as he leaned in and kissed Dash again.

 

“I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

 

“I like this,” Danny responded as he kissed Dash again. There was something strange in it, about it, but it felt good. “And I’m not drunk anymore.”

 

Dash took off his shirt, and Danny put his hands on his chest. The boy was still as fit as he was in high school, and then Danny took off his shirt and the two of them kept kissing, then Dash moved to Danny’s neck. A moan escaped Danny’s lips as did a little more of his breath which quickly evaporated into the ether. Dash’s hands slid down to Danny’s butt, grabbing it as Danny’s fingers sunk into Dash’s blonde locks. Dash’s fingers slipped into Danny’s pants and in that moment, Danny’s eyes opened.

 

“Wait…”

 

“Okay,” Dash said, stopping immediately.

 

“Sorry, I just had a weird feeling.”

 

“You say stop, I stop,” Dash said. 

 

A second later, Danny fell off the bed and grabbed the trashcan near his bedside table and vomited into it. Then again. The ghastly flu had taken him.

 

~~

 

Danny floated downstairs, his head pounding, hands shaking as his mother gave him a glass of orange juice and a few aspirins, fork dropping food when he sat next to his dad with a plate of breakfast, and breath showing when Jazz put a blanket around his shoulders. He didn’t get sick often, but he did last night.

 

“Dash Baxter sure grew up nicely,” Jazz said as she handed Danny a slip of paper.

 

It read: Dear Fentonio, call them. Then do something for you.

 

“Wasn’t he the boy that teased you through high school, son?” Jack asked as he smiled at the second helping of eggs being piled onto his plate.

 

“Yeah, dad,” Danny said, squinting to read the words on the page.

 

“What are you doing hanging around with him?” Maddie asked.

 

“I met him at a bar last night, and I think I might hang out with him again tonight,” Danny said with another little smile. “By the way, thank you for letting me go out last night. I feel better already…well, except for the flu. Thank goodness it’s not contagious!”

 

“And to think, you’ve got two more full weeks of break left. Whatever will you do with them?” Jazz asked as she kissed her brother on the crown of his head.

 

~~

 

“Do you want to meet for a walk tonight? Maybe no drinks,” Danny said.

“Do you know how many years I’ve wanted to kiss you, Fenton?”

 

“I can guess.”

 

“Did you call them yet?”

 

“I was just about to, but I wanted to make plans before I did so you’d drag me out of the house, regardless.”

 

“I’ll be at your place at five. That’s when my shift is up.”

 

After a goodbye, Danny highlighted Sam’s number first. Tucker would be next. It was the first time in about three years that he was going to hit the send button, not just look at the number, and not just contemplate.

 

“Hit send, Danny.”

 

His thumb hit the little green phone.

 

“Hello…?”

 

“Hey, Sam.”


End file.
